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From https://www.voanews.com/a/native-american-hand-talker-fight-to-keep-signed-language-alive/3794333.html

Native American Hand Talkers Fight to Keep Sign Language Alive
Cecily Hilleary
April 3, 2017

In early September 1930, the Blackfeet Nation of Montana hosted a historic Indian Sign Language Grand Council, gathering leaders of a dozen North American Nations and language groups.

The three-day council held was organized by Hugh L. Scott, a 77-year-old U.S. Army General who had spent a good portion of his career in the American West, where he observed and learned what users called Hand Talk, and what is today more broadly known as Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL). With $5,000 in federal funding, Scott filmed the proceedings and hoped to produce a film dictionary of more than 1,300 signs. He died before he could finish the project.

Scott’s films disappeared into the National Archives. Recently rediscovered, they are an important resource for those looking to revitalize PISL.

…Research has shown that Hand Talk is still being used by a small number of deaf and hearing descendants of the Plains Indian cultures.

"Hand Talk is endangered and dying quickly,” said Melanie McKay-Cody, who identifies herself as Cherokee Deaf and is an expert in anthropological linguistics.

McKay-Cody is the first deaf researcher to specialize in North American Hand Talk and today works with tribes to help them preserve their signed languages. She is pushing for PISL to be incorporated into mainstream education of the deaf.

Read the full article at https://www.voanews.com/a/native-american-hand-talker-fight-to-keep-signed-language-alive/3794333.html